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Sheriff Laurie Smith of the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department announces new reforms at the Main Jail during a press conference at the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. The changes were announced after the agency found that 43 percent of the use-of-force complaints at the Main Jail were made by correctional deputies and officers working the D-Shift. (Gary Reyes/ Bay Area News Group)

SAN JOSE — In one of the most extensive surveys of jail inmates ever conducted in California, nearly 1,000 Santa Clara County prisoners interviewed by a consultant to a citizens commission said their complaints about filthy living conditions, shabby medical care and brutal treatment have long gone unheeded because of a broken grievance system that allows guards to hide misconduct and the sheriff to ignore their concerns.

The inmates’ anecdotal accounts are bolstered in a second analysis also presented Saturday to Santa Clara County’s blue ribbon commission aimed at improving the jails. The analysis, which detailed “critical failures at every stage” of the grievance system, as well as the interviews with 944 inmates were commissioned by the citizens panel for about $220,000.

Together, the two reports paint a picture of a largely unmonitored complaint system susceptible to corruption — a system in which guards can refuse to give inmates a grievance form or bully them into not submitting one, and harshly retaliate if they do. Inmates described losing their out-of-cell time or being written up as “manipulative” or “aggressive” for complaining, labels that can get them summarily transferred to more restrictive cells.

Responses to complaints that do get through are often unduly slow or prematurely halted without full fact-finding, the reports said. So many inmates have given up entirely on the system, either because they believe it doesn’t work or out of fear that they’ll be beaten by guards or other inmates acting at the guards’ behest.

Both the analysis and 944 confidential interviews — representing about 27 percent of the county’s 3,500 inmates — focused on complaints about staff misconduct, neglect of medical conditions like broken bones and diabetes, and dirty conditions that give rise to rashes, ringworm, scabies and staph infections.

“The stuff I heard about today was atrocious, but I know it happens because I’ve been there,” said Commissioner Pablo Gaxiola, a former inmate who now helps coordinate Goodwill of Silicon Valley’s re-entry program for former prisoners. “It’s a culture of concealment.”

The jails, overseen by Sheriff Laurie Smith, have been under heightened scrutiny since late August, when three guards allegedly beat mentally ill inmate Michael Tyree to death in his cell and were charged with murder. In a growing excessive force scandal, two other guards suspected of beating a shackled inmate so severely that his jaw was permanently disfigured have been placed on administrative leave.

The report doesn’t attempt to confirm whether the inmates’ many accounts of excessive force are true or not, or to quantify the extent of the problem. Some inmates and their families said some guards try to do a good job and treat inmates fairly and refer to brutal and verbally abusive guards as “bad apples.” But the “good guards,” prisoners and their families said, do not have support from their superiors to speak up about their colleagues’ misconduct.

After attending the commission’s four-hour meeting Saturday, Smith told a reporter that both consultants’ presentations raised issues of “great concern,” some of which she said she is already working on.

For instance, Smith said in a statement issued later in the day, she is having locked grievance-collection boxes installed in the jails so inmates can “feel safer” making complaints. She said she would also implement a tracking process to “ensure those complaints don’t fall on deaf ears.”

“We are not waiting for every report to be issued before we take action, in ways big and small,” she said.

But the analysis, prepared by consultant Aaron Zisser, calls for another layer of scrutiny: an independent overseer of the jails who would report directly to the Board of Supervisors and have full access to jail facilities, data, records and staff.

The model is rare. Los Angeles County is believed to be the only other county in the state with one.

Currently, external oversight is cursory. For instance, the state entity that conducts biennial audits of local jails in California, the Board of State and Community Corrections, issued a generally sunny short page report in 2014 about the Santa Clara County jails.

“Inmates assured us that medical staff was responsive to their requests, and expressed no complaints about the grievance or disciplinary process,” the report said, in sharp contrast to the inmates’ comments presented Saturday.

Supervisor Cindy Chavez, a nonvoting member of the commission, said she supports independent oversight, a key sign that the county may sustain scrutiny of the jails beyond the life of the temporary commission, which is set to disband in April after issuing final recommendations.

The confidential interviews were conducted in the jails in January and earlier this month by a team of lawyers supervised by the San Francisco-based Moscone law firm. The lawyers also reached out to jail guards and inmates’ relatives, but only 32 jail staffers and eight inmates’ families agreed to be interviewed.

Inmates and the small number of guards who were interviewed agreed on one key point: The jails are grossly understaffed by the county and the sheriff, exacerbating tensions to the detriment of everyone’s safety. Inmates stay pent up in tiny cells for days because there are not enough guards to supervise them outside their cells, according to the interviews with both the guards and inmates.

But inmates also complained that some guards keep them locked down and spend most of their time on their cell phones because they are utterly indifferent to their needs. About two months ago, Smith restricted cell phone use to emergencies only, but there appears to be a gap between policy and practice since the interviews were conducted in the past month and a half.

Male and female inmates from all three county jails also complained about not being given enough soap, cleaning supplies and menstrual pads to maintain personal hygiene and keep their cells sanitary. They said they get one set of often-torn and stained clothes at a time, which they have to wear for days to sleep and to work out in. The inmates said they are not allowed to use the sinks to wash their clothing — and that those who do often get in trouble with the guards.

The Board of Supervisors has acknowledged staffing shortages and need for more jail services, recently adding specialty clinics such as dialysis, to the new jail they are planning to build. But that jail won’t open for at least 3 1/2 years.

The serious nature of the jails’ problems took Scott Emblidge, the lawyer who headed the interview team, entirely by surprise, he told the commission Saturday.

“I’m not a flaming liberal who had an agenda going into this,” Emblidge said. “I’m a former deputy city attorney who has defended law enforcement officers in court.”

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482.

The grievance process is not sufficiently confidential.

Guards can retaliate against inmates who file complaints in several ways, including by “writing up” inmates via “custody input” cards, which can result in loss of already limited out-of-cell time or transfer to a more restrictive unit.

Grievances (which address conditions of confinement) and complaints (which allege staff misconduct) are not properly distinguished under the current system, which reduces accountability.

Allegations of serious misconduct and incidents involving use of serious uses of force often are not referred for investigation.

Responses to complaints are often unduly slow or prematurely halted without full fact-finding.

The jails provide “grossly inadequate” information to inmates about how they can address staff misconduct, including excessive force and other serious concerns, such as sexual misconduct by other inmates.

Meaningful independent and external oversight of the jails does not exist.

Oversight is especially critical because of other serious concerns, including overcrowding in Main Jail South and understaffing by the sheriff and the county of correctional deputiesSources: Santa Clara County Blue Ribbon Commission on Improving Custody Operations; “Grievance and Complaint Procedures” presentation by consultant Aaron Zisser

Tracey Kaplan is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group based at The Mercury News. A former courts reporter, she is now reporting primarily on consumer issues, and welcomes any tips/suggestions, especially on how to make ends meet in the Bay Area. Watch for a series this summer on her personal solution to the housing crisis -- spending her nest egg on turning a cargo van into what will eventually be her full-time home. For more info, see @itsavanlife on Instagram and our Facebook group, Full House: Inside the Bay Area housing shortage.

[…] spearheaded the survey of Santa Clara County jails that was at the heart of a multitude of reforms recommended by the blue ribbon commission aimed at […]

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[…] Pablo Gaxiola, a Blue Ribbon Commission member and former inmate, described the report’s findings as “atrocious,” the Mercury News reported […]

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